Absolutely, miraclemty - assess away. The more opinions from people qualified to judge, the better.

When you do that, could you also state your experience/skill level in Muay Thai - just for the record? Ta.

1/14/2011 11:53am,

It is Fake

Quote:

Originally Posted by miraclemty

This might just be my opinion here but I think that teaching group fitness classes at the Y may be the lesser of two evils here. Hardy admittedly "trains MMA fighters", which to me is a gross overstatement. Teaching energetic kids and stressed out adults to drop some daily stress through Billy Blanks style cardio kickboxing junk is one thing. But training a student to compete in full contact competition is a recipe for injury with Hardy's lack of knowledge both as a competitor and a practitioner in these styles (besides the TKD, possible exposure to Hapkido and Tai-Chi).

I can only complain about the stand-up since I only practice Muay Thai, but if its ok with everyone here I can give a broken down assessment of what he professes are "Muay Thai" combinations. However, I dont want to derail the thread if those points have already been adressed (but it seems like only the grappling, stick-fighting and boxing have been examined in detail).

EDIT: **** I necro'd this thread I didnt realize that my MABS link was favorited to the third page of the section.

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I've been training for 11 years in traditional Muay Thai under Khru David Brown, student under Master Toddy (I realize Toddy is somewhat unpopular for his marketing tactics but he's still a legend to me) and fighting for 3 years, verified by this Forum as seen in my profile tagline.

Two major things pop out without even having to go more than fifteen seconds into either video. First of all, Hardy refers to a simple Leg kick as a "cut kick" in the Taewresdo/shootboxing class video. A leg kick is basic, used to attack the nerve clusters just above the thigh and below the hip on the outside, and a few inches above the knee on the inside. I'm sure everyone knows you get hit there enough, it goes numb and cant support your weight. A cut kick is actually extremely hard to pull off, and requires insane timing. When an opponent kicks to your midsection or head, a cut kick attacks the support leg while the opponent's kick is coming, therefore "cutting" the leg out from underneath. The fact the Hardy calls a basic attack a cut kick shows his vocabulary doesn't match his experience.

Second, the biggest problem with whatever the hell he is teaching is that he is using TKD "snap" kicks as Muay Thai roundkicks. In Muay Thai, because you are front facing and squared up, your elbows block your ribs from being what we call "up-kicked" (not an MMA upkick obviously). Thats when the angle of the kick comes up from the ground instead of sweeping across and through the target from the side. This will break your foot if you ever used it, because it will contact the elbow and the point of the elbow will win over the surface of whats hitting it. The upward angle is created by not turning the hip over properly during a kick, instead stopping the hip from turning over to get more speed out of the kick, but also creating a whip-like impact and snapping sound. In a correct kick in Muay Thai, especially to the body, you shouldn't hear a crack or a snap, instead it should be an umph, much like a baseball bat. The snap signifies that there is a ton of surface area contact but no penetration, because all of the force is displaced on the surface.

Third, and again this is without going more than a minute into the videos, the footwork is incorrect for the combinations they are throwing. Its TKD footwork using a Muay Thai-esque approach. The students should be squared up to generate power from the momentum of the opposite side of the attacking limb. When you arent squared, the kicks are far less efficient both in power and speed when alternating legs and punches.

Finally, the spinning back kick is only done as a recovery in Muay Thai competition, not as an attack in a traditional combination. If you throw a kick, miss, but follow through too far and find your back exposed, thats the only possible time you would throw a spinning back kick, to keep your opponent from rushing in with his own attack. And even then its not very common in traditional competition.

I can go into more detail with marked seconds in th vids if necessary, but its completely and totally obvious to me that Mr. Hardy is extremely ignorant of actual Muay Thai, and is simply passing off TKD with boxing/kickboxing combinations as actual Muay Thai.

Elbow and knee combinations that he shows are a completely different story and there is so much wrong with them that its should be inherently obvious to anyone watching these vids that he is teaching them incorrectly. I will post another critique of these techniques.